Another day... another dollar... or two.

Spent a lot of time catching up on things at the office as well as getting prepared for another round of billing fun that starts next week.

Ate lunch with Bill, Rod, Tom and Mike at the "Sushi Boat". This was my first time there. There's a moat of water around the sushi bar with boats linked together in it. On each are different selections of sushi on small plates. You just pick a plate of what you want and that's it. You can also ask the chef for anything you need. I did a bunch of that. They didn't have smoked salmon so I had the regular salmon instead. It was good. Also had crab in addition to a tempura shrimp roll. Didn't care for the shrimp that much. Ate a few plate-fulls but spent only a fraction of what I would have at Edo's. I still like the selection at Edo's better. Plus, I know most of the people there. I'll hit the Sushi Boat occasionally when I don't feel the need for a big meal.

After work, I stopped at home to eat some diiner then headed over to Dave and Dana's for Jeremy and Alison's tool and gadget thing. (lots of and's in that sentence) It was well attended. I had about a good a time as most guys do at these functions. Luckily, most of my friends were there so we just hung out and chatted. Came home and drummed a little. Time for bed now as I've got a long weekend ahead hanging out south of Memphis with Kyle and Jeff at the Womens Pro Billiards tournament. Should be a good time I hope.

Gonna miss the Crosspoint folks Sunday. A big thanks to Jeremy for covering drumming duties for me. You da man. He and Slightly-lighter E will keep it tight for the crowd I'm sure.

Normalcy has returned!

I actually had a NORMAL day at the office today! It was refreshing to do my regular job for once. Stayed pretty busy most of the day but it wasn't that tedious report crap. Ate lunch at the Chinese buffet with the usual Thursday crew. Me, Wayne, Ralph, Ellis, and Tom were there. The hostess there hooked me up with a huge plate of roasted pork since the buffet was out. That was awesome. She actually brought me TOO much so I felt bad about wasting what I couldn't finish. I was sleepy for an hour or so after I got back to my desk but I survived.

Apparently Jordan found a link to our bLogs and is now "in" on the happenings in our lives. Now she'll see the complications we have in our own lives. ;-)

Called the Burns on the way home and ended up making dinner plans. I offered to go eat someplace cheap since I had a big lunch but they ended up picking Ruby Tuesday's. I had one of the appetizers as my dinner while they ate really good. Walked off our meal in Office Depot and the bookstore. I headed home and did some drumming. Got some new magazines in the mail the other day so I guess I'll do a little reading this evening.

On another note - Mardi Gras is over. Put your tube top back on please.

ARMAGEDDON!!!!

If you're not laughing when you read the above title then you obviously need me to send you an audio file.

Very busy day at the office as I FINALLY FINISHED THAT %&^#*&@ SERVER REPORT. Sheesh! What a pain that was. That pretty much burned up the entire workday. Bill and I had lunch at Edo's. My food was delicious as usual. Bill had something funny happen though. On one of his trays there was what looked like noodles and a leaf of some sort. Looked like a big mint leaf if you ask me. Anyway, the hostess there - an older Japanese lady, saw that he had left them (there were two) uneaten. She indicated that they were meant to be eaten and they weren't just for decoration. She picked up Bill's chopsticks, wrapped the noodles in the leaf, dipped it in the wasabi and held it up to Bill's mouth while cupping her hand underneath like you would if you were feeding a child. It all happened so fast the only thing he could do was open his mouth to eat it! It turned out to be good, but the whole even was hilarious to see in person. I didn't have time to get my phone out to take a picture but it was definitely a Kodak moment.

Drove home in some increasingly crappy weather and ate some dinner. I was drumming when I got a call from Kev that they were going out to eat after practice. I was pretty much resigned to staying home but I decided that I just need to get out more. I joined them and Donny for dessert. Kyle showed up as well. We all fed our faces then parted ways.

Wake the neighbors.

Picked up a 'tater for dinner and came home. After I finished eating, Eric, Kyle and Kevin came over and we jammed for a couple of hours. Brought back memories of band practice my house. Very loud. Everyone played some smokin' riffs. It was nice just to get together with no agenda and just PLAY. Going to wind things down now and relax a bit before settling into bed.

Microsoft Ex-hell

Still working on server reports today so that's kept me at 100% utilization. I did take some time out to attend some conference calls and also to write an email commending the employees of one of the subcontractors I use. They're all happy about that. Maybe they'll get a raise or a bat on the back for that.

Rick - a drummer buddy of mine up in Boston I mentioned the other day, got new heads although they weren't what I reccommended and now the sound of his kit has suffered. He was insanely funny when he described his situation. He's all freaked out that he can't get his drums sounding right. Poor guy. He's working on a solution though.

I'll post more later. Got to get back to work.

Monday catch-up

Sunday was a great day. Beautiful weather out! Slightly gloomy on the inside as it took a little while for the band to get into the groove and set to roll. Eventually we got it all together and we were ready. Everything went off without a hitch. Andy stepped in and did a presentation on Gideons since Dave was out of commission recovering from his surgery. Suprisingly, the presentation went well - very polished and professional.

Ate lunch with the Burns (suprised?) at Red Lobster and also made some progress with someone I was interested in there. Hopefully, her schedule will allow her to join us at the Guad tonight although it was kind of short notice on my part. Whatever the case, I got my foot in the door for something in the future - always a good thing.

Me, The Morgans and Kyle headed to Cullman to check out my buddy Jeff and some of his friends playing at a church down there. After we arrived, we found out there were TWO "Seventh Street Baptist" churches there. We were of course at the wrong one. We needed to go to the "Seventh Street Baptist" church on HWY 157. SUP WIF DAT?!?! We got to the right one about 10 minutes later and were greeted by a gravel parking lot and an awesome worship center. Got us some good seats on the 2nd row then I went and found Jeff. Met up with them in the cafeteria briefly then made my way back to my seat and joined back up with rest. Introduced Jeff to everyone and then he took his place as the other filed out on stage. Great performance! They played a lot of the songs we had, some in different arrangements. It was different hearing the tunes with the addition of piano, string, horn and choir sections. I was very blessed. When they were done, we went up on stage and everyone got to meet people. We all met Craig Nelson - bassist for Amy Grant & Vince Gill, as well as Dave Cleveland - studio guitarist, and Wendy met the singer from the NYC Metroplitan Opera. Helped load equipment back on the bus then took more pictures. The bus was super-fly too!

End result was that we all had a great time, met new friends, Eric has a line on some private bass instruction... wish Kevin & Stacey could have made it. They would have enjoyed it too. Jack & Pam also.

Going to relax a bit before the Guad. I had a tiring day at the office staring at my report. It's still not done. Tomorrow hopefully.

Friday

A good, but busy day in the office. I finally got that %@&*!# bill completed. Working on the server report now. Had lunch with Bill at Edo's. The place was packed but my buddy at the sushi bar moved our orders to the front so I actually received my sushi before my kitchen order. Very nice.

Spent the afternoon on reports while Bill shopped furiously for a new video card. Me and some of our co-workers had been talking about the games we had been playing on our PC's and he was getting left out. His PC is a little behind.. okay, a LOT behind the curve. He got the clearance from his wife to get a new video card. Needless to say, there were a lot of shopping noises from his side of the office.

I did some shopping as well - Kyle was heading up to Nashville so I called my girl at Fork's Drum Closet up there and paid for some small items that Kyly would pick up for me while he was in town (thanks dude!). It's very convenient as he usually goes up there once every two weeks and is in the vicinity of the shop. Fork's is a great place. If you're a percussionist, they have EVERYTHING. Everyone that works there is a drummer. Great people and customer service.

Original dinner plans changed so did the usual - went to the Burns. Brought over a few things and we feasted on king crab legs, steamed and baked. We had TOO much though. Ended up bringing several legs across the street to Dana's. That stuff's too expensive to waste. Hope she enjoyed it. After dinner, Kevin helped me mount up some track-style lighting in his bonus room. After straining our necks and backs, we got it installed. The new look is great! It's nice to be able to point the lights just where you need it. Kev just needs a little more storage space to put some of his stuff in then he'll be set.

Ended up looking at some picture albums I brought over to catch them up on the history of the man called J-Mo. Also looked at a lot of their old pictures. Pictures of Kevin when he was skinny and Stacey when she was hot... LOL!!! Just kiddin Stacey. I'm sure I'll receive a well deserved beating for that comment.

Shifting gears, it looks like Eric and Kevin are on-board with the additonal practice. That's awesome! I really think we can use the additional time to tighten up the instrumental parts of our worship songs and also get some time to develop our secular music skills as well without the time constraints we have on Wednesdays.

Just got a phone call from my buddy Rick up in Boston. He was calling for some advice on new heads for his drums. He's a cool guy. I wish more of my drumming buddies lived closer. In Nashville there's Jeff, Carl, Chester and Johnny. And up north there's Rick. Jeremy's around down here but since he has other "responsibilities", we don't get to hang out as often. Such is life.

Time to make some breakfast.

Numbers and more numbers. And a rant. :-)

Had the same thing to work on today that I was working on yesterday. Nuff' said on that.

It LOOKED beautiful outside. I didn't get to enjoy it because I was inside instead. No matter though, I worked my hiney off but still didn't get finished. The rest of the day wasn't too spectacular although I will note that I had no interaction with the Burns clan today, in person at least. Ate lunch and dinner at home for a change.

Took a much needed break from the PC and watched Friends. Then, I spent about an hour on the drums. I've got to figure out how to integrate more of the drumming styles I've picked up in my worship playing. I probably could add some spice to my worship playing if we practiced more as a band together. I know some of the band really wants to get better - tighter & more musical. But we have to be realistic in our expectaions of what 90 mins or so week can get us. The bottom line is that we need to practice more not only individually, but as a band. Right now is an opportune time to take advantage of our relatively "light" church duties (for lack of a better term). Back in the day, Sundays were spent in Sunday school, morning worship, evening worship, discipleship one evening of the week and "something" on Wednesday night. There was also visitation if you wanted to participate in that. Heck, even back in our days at the hotel we spent hours on Sunday with just the logistics of getting TO and then BACK from the place. Now that we've been blessed with our own place, we've slacked off pretty much doing the minimum we need to get by. And that's just it, I don't want to just "get by". I want us... I want ME to be the best I can be where I am serving. Granted I have significantly less responsibilities than most of my friends (except for my Asian brother.. LOL) and can make time but think about it. We can make time to do whatever we want to do. To make this non-specific (don't want to offend any sensitive people) if you had a passion for fishing, I don't care how busy you are - you'll do what it takes to MAKE time for the water. I remember back when I got caught up in bowling. I bowled almost every chance I had. Dave and I even bowled on our lunch break sometimes!

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not a problem if you don't have the same desire to spend time on the band as I do. I'm just pointing out things about myself that might just get you to think about things differently as well. This is not an "I'm more committed than you" issue at all. It's me simply stating my mind and the direction I would like to go.

Ah, but I digress.

My bad.

Wendy, I did NOT realize you had been blogging for over 3 months. Sorry for my "oversight". ;-)

Brian - looks like you've remained faithful to the blogging community, I re-added you to my link list.

Working at the homestead.

Worked from home today on a customer bill - spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon on it. Now I'm just waiting to get the data back, a draft bill, to review and approve to send to the customer. I've got a little more to go on it then I'll be through. Hope to get it sent ot sometime tomorrow morning. Next up will be the server managment report. That'll be fun.

Ate 2 meals with the Burns today. I think we're almost related now.

Band practice went without a hitch. As we played our first song, I realized my toms and ME were too far forward and I was all up on my kick pedal. It made playing the kick fast - difficult. So... I'm sure I sounded like I was lacking rhythm that first time around. I tried to make some quick adjustments and eventually got things better situated. Note to self... check the position of all my gear before I start next time.

I'm kinda tired so I guess I might call it an early night.

Sigh.

Well, after I was assured several times that the site I was going to try and get on the network today was ready... it really wasn't. BUT, I stuck with my plan of always setting low expectations and guess what? I wasn't surprised at all! I told my customer contact, "Hey, it's okay. It's not like this is the first time you've done this to me..." LOL! Still, even though we charged the customer for the time wasted today, it's a little irritating to have jumped through all sorts of hoops to have something like this happen in the end. I'll be working from home the next two days so Bill will be filling in for me as this debacle continues. He's getting a lot better now at it so I have plenty of confidence in him. If he gets in a bind I don't mind him calling me at home. He's a good guy.

Went for my haircut today. Holly has apparently been exposed to a motivational speaker that has motivated her to... raise prices. I've been with her for 10 years or so now so I don't mind all that much. She's got bills to pay too. Now if I find out who that motivational speaker is...

Received some "Lockerz" today for my drums. If you didn't know, striking the rim of a drum tends to loosen the lug (tension screw) nearest it (the top AND bottom sometimes). It's no biggie but your drum does go out of tune. It can be hard to detect that it's out of tune but when it is, you can get some weird overtones and/or buzzes from the drum instead of a clear note. The Lockerz snap on to the lugs in question and prevent them from moving on their own although you can still adjust the lug using your drum key. I played on my drums for a good bit with no loosening issues. I'm happy.

I'm not looking forward to the next two days of report work. Being home to work on it is nice, but the work is tedious and time-consuming. It's hard to concentrate at the office on this particular task because of all the interruptions there... phone calls, CONSTANT email, people walking in, etc. At home, you just have to pretty much resist doing anything else and stay focused on the work at hand. Yay.

Talked to Dave a little. He's in pain, much more than he was initially. Heal up soon bud.

Situation FUBAR.

Another lovely day at the office. A site deployment I was getting done for one of my customer's has already derailed due to poor planning on the customer's part. Wiring I need like power (hmmm), and the T1 line have not been installed as I was told it would be. Apparently, some of the contractors were celebrating President's Day yesterday and didn't get anything done like they were supposed to. The fun continues even now.

Looks like Dave's a bit uncomfortable today. Sorry to hear that man. Hope you can get some rest and get to feeling better soon.

Oh look, it's the Burns and that Asian dude again...

Busy day at the office! Lots going on. Bill must've felt guilty leaving me high and dry last Friday as he was being very helpful today. Had some funny things go on with our network management parter this afternoon after a major network disruption occurred when a BIG router crashed at the customer's network core. This isn't a router like the one you have at home to share your network with. This is a big honkin' size-of-a-refrigerator enterprise-class monster with several hundred circuits terminating into it. I called Gail, project manager at our network management center and inquired as to what was happening with the router. She relayed the question to Ben, the lead engineer on the shift... I could hear him yell in the background - "It's BROKE!!!!". In context of all that was happening, it came across pretty dang funny. In the end, they got it all back going again.

Met up with the Burns (a recurring theme) at the Monday Guad-Squad gathering. We had our good waiter... need to get his name for future reference, and had a good meal. We walked around the mall afterwards and did some shopping then went to pay Big John a visit to see where he's been hiding as we haven't seen him around in awhile. While we were there, Kevin and Stacey looked at new washers and dryers while I pushed Kailyn around in a cart through the aisles. She was acting a bit bi-polar tonight. Laughing one minute and fussy the next. Must be having some sort of estrogen overdose. There seems to be a lot of that going around lately. Just a thought, if you're getting cranky all the time around other people... it's possible that you're probably the common denominator. Suck it up and get over yourself. Everyone has problems.

Sorry, climbed up on a soapbox for a moment.

On another note, I IM'd with Dave this afternoon after he got cut on. Thankfully he made it through smoothly although it's a bit uncomfortable to do "things". He's got some recovery time in front of him but hopefully, the time off from work won't only give him rest physically but mentally and most importantly spiritually as well.

Also in the recovery ward is Kevin "Gramps" Burns. He's moving around much better after being gimpy the past several days.

Time for bed again. I think I notice a definite pattern in my life... sleep, work, eat with the Burns, play drums, get on PC then repeat. Man, if that's not exciting, I don't know what is.

Oh! One last thing. On the way to work, a glass delivery truck lost a sheet of glass on 565. At first, it looked like a great big splash of water when it shattered. I looked ahead and saw the glass truck and made the connection. It pulled over quick. Luckily, I was in the other lane from where it happened but a semi that was following the truck got the full brunt of the glass. Yikes. Would have sucked to be on a motorcyle behind that.

It's 8 P.M. I must be bloated...

That just doen't quite sound like a Matchbox 20 song.

Spent most of the day away from the computer for once. I'm gonna work on doing that more. Also played drums a LOT today. Skipped my usual Sunday nap though. Maybe I'll sleep better tonight as a result.

One thing's for sure, I won't go to be hungry! Me and the Burns crew headed to Dead Lobster for a Lobsterfest extravaganza (again). I had exactly the same thing as last time, clam chowder soup (2 bowls... bonus!!!), 2 lobster tails, lobster & shrimp pasta then the finale of key lime pie. Kailyn wanted to try my pie so I gave her a bite. She liked it at first then the "tart" must have set in. She did not like that at all. And this from a baby that can munch on a lemon wedge. Wuss. :-)

Kev and Stacey hid some groceries on their side of the table as well. They've been lots of fun to hang out with. I hate it for Stacey that she's the only girl (Kailyn doens't count yet) around and I end up making fun of her. I defintely need to find my own woman to make fun of...

Oh, we did witness a disturbing sight! Across the aisle from us was a couple... a strange looking dude and a large woman. She had taken her shoes off and was rubbing up and down dude's legs. Please note that there are no tablecloths in this restuarant. If she would have rubbed any harder, I would have had flashbacks to my Boy Scout days trying to start a fire with sticks and a string.

When I got home I chatted a bit with Natalie, a friend of mine from West Virginia. She had the unfortunate experience of having a brick thrown through the window of her car while she was inside a friends house in Washington, D.C. . She lost a few things but still... sucks to have that happen to you I'm sure. She's back home safely now.

Time for bed.

Rough, then smooth. The usual.

Woke up to a cold rainy morning here in Alabama. Packed up my gear and headed out. Heavy E was already there when I arrived. I had to make a few adjustments to my kit after I reconfigured everything last night. The layout worked pretty good for me, closely matching my layout at home. It's also very comfortable to have my ride cymbal out front.

Warm-up was rough around the edges. I got a little frustrated because I didn't jot down some of the changes in the music from practice. I scribbled down the alterations and we moved on. There were a bunch of guests that came in afterwards. I was wishing we had last weeks rocking set list instead of the rather sedate one for today.

As is our custom, our rough practice last Wednesday and rough warm-up this morning did NOT translate into a rough performance. If anything went wrong, I didn't pick up on it. All transitions were on and all changes that I noted down I executed.

Funny moment involving Kyle that Eric and Kevin saw. One of the female guests dropped her pen (I suppose) and Kyle picked it up and handed it to her. I analyzed the situation and since several of the "indicators" were in place:

1. Female
2. Eye contact
3. Possible word said (probably "thanks" or "here")
4. Distance of < 5'

I took action.

I walked up and mentioned to Kyle quietly "This doesn't mean you're dating.". :-D

If you loyal bLog readers don't find that funny, I apologize, it's more of an inside joke.

Grabbed some lunch and have been watching the Daytona 500. Wow. Waltrip took quite a tumble.

It's 53 degrees... and we have a winter storm watch going on.

Warmed up a good bit outside today. Played fetch with Kelsey for a bit then alternated playing on the PC, playing drums and doing house work. I also managed to go to the grocery store. Found a great deal on king crab legs at Winn-Dixie - $8.99 a pound!?! I picked up a few pounds for myself.

Tried to watch some of the Busch series race today but it was getting rained out and I got tired of waiting. Ran back out again to get a few small items for dinner. Along the way I stopped off at the bookstore to see what was new. Ran in to Jay and Allie there, aquaintences from a church I used to attend. Jay just started playing the bass about 2 months ago. I mentioned that Heavy E has been playing the big strings for us for a while now. Jay's looking to take lessons so I guess he's pretty serious about picking it up. I pointed him towards the music magazines. Apparently he didn't know there were bass specific mags out there. At any rate, it was good running into them.

Figured I'd try something different with a few pounds of the crab legs tonight. Made some garlic butter using butter (duh), garlic, lemon juice and some kosher salt. Brushed that on the legs then baked them for 30 mins. I then used the remaining butter for dipping. That was delicious. Gonna have to remember to try that next time we do crab at the Burns'.

Messed around with the tuning of my drums on my studio kit. Tweaked the tension on the kick drum heads. WOW! My kick drum will rattle some teeth now. I love it. Speaking of drums, I also swung by the church building to re-arrange my tubs there into the arrangement I have at home. It's also similar to the way Jeremy positions his drums. He'll be filling in for me at the end of the month when I go out of town for the weekend. Hopefully, the changes to my setup there will make him more comfortable.

Hmmm, it would seem my buddies aren't doing too well health-wise these days... Dave has "protrusions", Kevin has back problems among other things, Kyle is working on a new strain of S.A.R.S./Mad Cow, and Bill (my co-worker) had some B.G. going on Friday. I went through my phase around Thanksgiving of last year where I thing I was sick for 2 weeks. I hope everyone gets well soon!

Productive.

Was busy as a 10 yr. old in one of Kathie Lee-Gifford's sweatshops today. Got plenty of stuff done at the office. The shipment of equipment I sent out yesterday arrived unscathed in Illinois and the tech for Newark showed up but he was running about 20 mins. behind. Everyone was calling my office, my cell, and my pager freaking out. You can't imagine how uptight people get when you schedule something requiring multiple resources. I jumped all over the tech for his tardiness and he apologized. Heh.

Ate lunch with Bernie today for our (almost) weekly Atl. Bread Co./CompUSA trip. Ran into heavy E, his mate and his larvae there eating some grub. Place was packed out. Nothing new at CompUSA but Bernie was scoping out some hard drives. He's almost done with a really nice office he's put together in his basement room. Here's the rub though, he broadband isn't available at HIS house... but it is at his neighbors. How bad does THAT suck? There's hope. A new subdivision is going in down the steet from him. Surely they'll find a way to cover the area with access. We'll see.

After work, I picked up some of my laundry at the cleaners then headed home. I was tired from all the stuff during the day. I took a short nap then went out to pick up some food at Captain D's. As usual, there's a cluster there and I was in the drive through about 20 mins. When I was paying at the window, someone had just pulled up to order and was tripping out over the wait. He was NOT happy. The employees were scurrying over to turn the volume down as he was expressing his displeasure at the wait. I was entertained.

Exchanged some email with my folks today. They will be coming home from the mission field soon for a short break as they take some time off and visit a lot of the churches that support them. I'm looking forward to seeing them of course, but the fact that I'll literally be "living with my parents" for awhile is going to be awkward. Eh, Kyle still does it. I should be able to handle it. ;-)

Gonna relax and watch some tube this evening. I need to turn my brain off for a bit. It hurts.

Can I get some help over here?

Busy day at the office. Crappy weather for the drive in. Had a lot of things happening today including an hour of my time arguing/discussing a stupid subject. Long story that I won't make longer.

Ate lunch with my Thursday crew. Big crowd today! Me, Wayne, Ellis, Brent, Ralph, Don, Dave, Charles and one dude I didn't know. We did some damage on the Chinese buffet. Yum yum yum. Got back to the office and got the test gear I mentioned earlier this week about 90% running. I hope to wrap that up tomorrow.

Arranged to get a truckload of equipment to a site tomorrow and a tech to install it on Tuesday. Arranged for another tech to be on-site tomorrow in Newark, NJ to do some configuration work. Woo hoo!

Went over to the Burns for some shrimp tacos (and regular). They were very good. While I was waiting, I set up his new wireless router and got Stacey's handheld working on it. The handheld wasn't charged up much so I didn't get to test the range by walking around the house. Hopefully it will be good though. It should, it's up on the 2nd floor.

Gonna play the drums for awhile.

Back at the salt mine.

Yesterday I didn't have much going on. Stayed home sick with some sort of stomach malfunction. I'll spare you the details.

After it was all said and done, I went out to dinner with Burns as I was incredibly hungry. Much better now.

Had this irritation going on this morning on the way to the office. I-565, 7:45AM...



Sigh.

Margaritaville.

Was busy from the get-go this morning. Emails came pouring in as my director decided to send me LOTS of mail over the weekend. Spent part of the day addressing email questions then another good part setting up my test simulation with the equipment that Verilink provided last Friday. I've got a little more work to go on that but al least I got the ball rolling. Also got in some data I needed for some reports. It's that time of the month again so I'll be buried in data for the next week or so. Yay.

After work, I stopped by our new "supafly" fitness center. Well, it's safe to say that when your company spend $3M on a 30,000 sq. foot fitness facility, it will be nice. WOW. Gonna start exercising up there starting tomorrow after work. Probably going to make it a Tuesday/Thursday thing until I get a chance to look at my schedule more closely. They've got trainers on staff, a basketball court, tons of free weights, cycles, Nautilus machines, and treadmills. I was very impressed.

Went Wal-Mart'in afterwards and picked up some needed items before heading back home. Played around on the drums a bit then met up with the crew at the Guad. Fun night tonight despite the fact that Eli ragged on me for the length of my jeans. Apparently, having lots of extra fabric hanging down on my shoes is the way to go. Sorry, but when you wear jeans to work in corporate America - better to err on the side of looking neat rather than looking slouchy. Plus, bell-bottoms go in and out of style whearas other styles stay constant. It's enjoying a brief comeback as the tree-hugging environmentalists are sporting that look for now. That's not a group I prefer to identify with. I know what I'll do. I'll wear a scarf with it. That will make it look better. ;-)

Aside from that, dinner was good. Kailyn wasn't feeling too well and was quiet most of the evening. She let me hold her for awhile before going back to mommy. According to Kevin, she's doing better now that she's home.

Time for bed now I guess. Hope my sheets are long enough.

Heh.

Slammin and Jammin...

Got to the church early as planned. Had to bring along some extra hardware as I brought all my cymbals except my big-momma China with me. Got everything arranged and set to go.

MUSIC WAS AWESOME TODAY. It was a surprise since our last practice was very rough. It all came together quite nicely though, especially "My Glorious". Had one bobble where one of my sticks went flying but I've got spare sticks stashed on both sides of me so it wasn't a big deal...

On one song, "Better is One Day" - we were done, or so I thought. I had already taken my monitors out and put my sticks away when Kevin started playing the keyboard again from a cue from Dave. I didn't think anything of it. Erik had already switched from his bass to an acoustic guitar for the next song. Kevin kept going... and going... then building... "Hmmmm..." He's gonna need some drums here in a second if he keeps going. I got back in to position to play just in time for Kevin to look over and cue me TO play.. I mean I had one beat's notice. Not a problem. ;-)

Dave and Kev did a great job on the video montage of the history of Crosspoint thus far. It made me very thankful again for having our own building (among other things) instead of the days when we had the weekly exodus to and from the hotel with 4 or 5 cars and sometimes a moving truck to haul "church" around. Dave issued a good challenge to us to which the majority responded I think. A great morning indeed.

Spent the next few hours at Cracker Barrel with The Burns, The Kyle, and Donnie and Marlene. Seating AND service was slow. Food was okay though. After that it was naptime.

Headed to Kevin's later on for some spaghetti. Veggie E was already there. Eli and her larvae showed up a bit later. Had a good time with them as usual. Time for bed now. Another fun week at work starts in just a few hours.

Slowin down.

Spent most of the day in swatpants and t-shirt. VERY laid back.Watched some of the NASCAR Daytona stuff on the satellite and did a few loads of laundry. Had a headache on and off during the day as well. Don't know what's up with that.

Kyle swung by around lunchtime to pick up some DVD's. He's still a bit under the weather and was staying in all day too. He'll be caught up on all the latest movies soon. Up to now, you could ask him if he's seen movie XXXXXXX and his answer would always be "No.". Now that he has a DVD player and lots of time on his hands, he's coming up to speed. Dana and Stacey also stopped by to pick up a DVD for a church project. Missed them the first time they came by.... was playing drums.

Drummed a lot today. Practiced my exercises mostly trying to build up speed and accuracy. I so wish I could have started playing back in my teen years. I didn't so I've got to stay focused. Man, I'm diggin my drums.

Finally got cleaned up and had dinner with 75% of the Anderson family. Always a good time. It's been awhile since we've went out to dinner together.

Got quite a list of music for tomorrow. I hope it all goes without a hitch. I plan to get there early to set up. Hopefully, everyone else will arrive on time so my early arrival won't be in vain. I have to set up some extra stands and things though. I want to be sure to have everything I could possibly need for the set tomorrow available to me. I'm looking forward to it.

Gonna try and sleep off my headache now.

It's the weekend. Again.

Work was the most normal today than it has been in quite awhile. Made progress on a few things, basiscally laying the groundwork for the next salvo of reports that will be coming due soon. My usual billing debacle is off to a running start as the people that are to provide me with it are all confused as to who is going to be doing it now. The responsibilities are transitioning from one individual to another group this month so this is the "gray area" time period. I've got the emails circulating to get some action taken on this.

For lunch, Alson (my manager's manager) and I headed to Macaroni Grill. Ate a HUGE meal of grilled salmon and lobster with a sauce of some sort. Yum. She had chicken portabello.

The remainder of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. The only thing worth noting is that a vendor came by and dropped of a piece of equipment I need to test out. I'm setting up a test platform to verify that network gear, specifically routers and CSU's that are returned from the field, are functional and can be re-deployed. This pieve of equipment I received will act as the frame-relay cloud. For you non-techies out there, let's just call it the phone company. I'll get that all set up Monday I suppose.

Found out that Kailyn has some sort of stomach flu. Poor thing. That's got to suck when you're that young and don't understand what's going on. Heck, it still sucks when you're older and DO understand. Good news on Dave's hernia surgery. Looks like recovery time won't be as severe as it could be.

Kyle gave me a jingle to see about running to HSV with him and Jeff to shoot pool at the Jazz Factory. I opted not to go as it was still crappy outside plus I was really kinda tired from work and didn't want to get back out again. From reading his blog it was probably a good idea not to go... he looks to be coming down with something.

On a completely different note, I felt real bad this morning (and most of the day for that matter) about that Carlie girl they found dead in Florida. I know we hear about people getting killed and stuff all the time but for some reason this girl stuck out more to me. With all the news coverage on it, I guess I just got pulled in more. I'm really saddend about that family's loss. Why did that guy kill her? I just don't understand. What would drive someone to abduct anyone and kill them? Especially a kid. That just pisses me off.

Relaxin...

Rowed home from work. Had a long discussion with Kevin about sound and the band. Talked about stage volume mostly. He's got some good ideas but I threw some out there as well. The reason stage volume is an issue is that we have guitar and bass amps present... PLUS their output is mic'ed then routed back through the monitors. What you're left with is sound coming from the amps themselves in addition to another blast of the same thing coming through the monitors... a double-dose. As a result, people can't hear themselves sing which leads to other problems as well since most of the vocalists key off of Kevin's vocals - if they can't hear him or themselves, there's no telling what note is coming out of their mouths.

My idea, since our room is somewhat small would be to try playing once with little or no reinforcement from the PA to see just how the instruments and their amps sound. Have the vocalists run through the PA and the monitors so they can be adjusted up and down to match the volume from the instruments and so they can hear themselves. Just experiment a bit to see how it goes. We'll see what happens. Just need to keep an open mind and have patience as we address these issues.

Mounted up my honkin-huge heatsink. It was very well made and easy to install. My system is much quieter now. The only thing I can really hear are the hard drives. Watched Friends then played drums for a bit. Also knocked out two loads of laundry. Time for bed now.

Soggy.

It's a soggy day in the neighborhood. Combine a rainy day with people that don't know how to merge into traffic and you have... added frustration. Quick lesson to the merge challenged:

1. Look at the traffic you are merging in to.
2. Adjust your speed to either blend in the front of someone or behind someone.
3. Merge.

Do NOT:

1. Go the same speed as the traffic... you'll end up running out of lane if no one slows to let you in
2. STOP

On to other things - had an exciting day at the office. Bill and I both had fun calls to be on. At lunch, I picked up my cpu heatsink from FedEx. While I was there, I mentioned that my home address was a resisdence and not an apartment complex. The guy at the desk, who I've dealt with before, mentioned that they got a bunch of new guys and that he's surprised they can even find their ignition keys. LOL!

Getting ready to head home. It's still raining out so I'm sure it will be interesting.

Ewwww.

Had a semi-crappy day at the office with issues, issues and more issues. The one possible bright spot was that FedEx was going to deliver that heatsink for my computer today. I looked online to check the status and is showed that they attempted delivery but had the incorrect address. I called 1-800-GoFedEx to see what was going on. They read me my address (which was correct) then said, "The problem is that the address didn't specify your apartment number..." Ummm. This is a residence, NOT an apartment complex. Sigh. I'll pick it up tomorrow I guess. At least the FedEx depot is only 2 miles from my office.

Band practice was kinda stinky tonight. Kevin lost his voice - this presents a problem because the other vocalists key off of Kevin's vocals. The groove was definitely off though.

Afterwards, headed to Cracker Barrel for some grub. Had a cute server. I tried, but was unsucessful in getting her phone number. Oh well. Nothing ventured nothing gained. What was I thinking anyway. It's less than 2 weeks till Valentine's day. I should be in a blackout period!

:-D

Two's day.

Felt "weird" yesterday, like I was starting to come down with something. I felt cold most of the day for one thing. I went straight home after work, picking up some food along the way so I could just eat and rest when I got home. After eating, I felt much better. Eli called later on from the Guad asking where everyone was. I mentioned what I knew. Since I was the first of the Guad Squad to leave the party last night, all the other Guad squad members remained so they should have discussed the plans before assuming anything. Just a thought.

Printed out the music for practice and played my parts on each. We've got a big lineup this week, double our normal amount of music. Should be fun though.

Played a little online and did some laundry. Called it a night and crashed.

This morning got up feeling rested. Headed in to work. Had the gamut of traffic irritations this AM - mobile home on the road and a bonehead in a white pickup truck HOLDING UP TRAFFIC.

Why, why, WHY do people insist on lingering in the fast lane when there's NO traffic in front of them and ALL the traffic behind them??? People wonde where road rage comes from... it's natures way of purging idiots from the gene pool.

Seriously though, c'mon... when you're driving, be aware of your surroundings. It's not your job to slow people down. It's not a race either. Just drive by the rules of the road. The left lane is primarily for passing, not hanging out in.

Monday Monday...

That's the intro to an old Mommas and the Poppas song I think. (random thought)

Work is going steady so far today. Some semblance of normalcy was evident from the neworking calls I was assigend to resolve. Nice to be able to do my "regular" job for once.

Ordered a quieter CPU cooler today for my home PC. The stock Intel fan is just too loud to deal with. Not so much the "whooshing" whooshing sound, but the high-pitched whine. Got one of the giant Zalman coolers and a syringe of Arctic Silver thermal paste. The larger cooler uses a bigger fan and runs at a much slower RPM. Sound rating is 20db or so. Quiet is nice.

Went to the mall for lunch then went walking around a little to let the food settle. Went by Sears to check out tools. Bill was showing me some of what he lost in therecent theft incident at his place.

Not sure what the plan is tonight, if the Guad Squad is on or not.

I see Brian got his bLog going again. I'll re-add him to my links to bLogs as soon as he has a proven track record of bLogging this time around. He loses cool points (Happy Days board game reference) for wishy-washiness.

Burnt up the weekend.

Started off the day at church. The new heads sounded SWEET through the PA. I moved my overhead mics around a bit and messed with some settings on them to reduce their output a bit but ended up putting them back to the setting they were on as they cut out too much of the sound. Depending on how close you are to the source of the sound, you can reduce the sensitivity by -10db or -25db. You can also tailor these mics to reject frequencies below a certain point as well to eliminate unwanted sounds from the kick drum or other bass instruments. Very versatile pieces. Anyway, I was VERY pleased with the sound after all the work I did on the kit Friday and Saturday.

We kicked off the workship service with a laid back grroving jam that Kyle, Eric and I did when fooling around during warm up. I keept a groove going along with Eric while Kyle moved around on his Fender. Nice stuff. We need to get together and just do that more. It would do wonders for our improvisational skills for sure. Since I'm tightly integrated with the bass line, Eric and I need to get together independent of regular band practice and work on different beats and rhythms. Between he two of us we should be able to develop some good changes to add some spice to our playing.

Dave did a great job as usual. Oh, and NO technical hiccups today! The downside though was that so many people were out sick or in attendance but under the weather. The weird weather we've been having lately didn't help things much I'm sure. I tried to avoid contact with the afflicted ones as much as possible. I've had enough sickness myself since the fall.

Picked up some lunch and went home. I also brought my reverb unit home with me to update it's software. I did end up installing my midi interface stuff last night so I was ready, or so I thought. I didn't have the needed cables. IM'd Kyle to see if he did. He did. :-)

Nap time.

Got up and headed to Jack's for the Superbowl party. Lot of folks there! Had a good time just hanging out with friends and eating good food. He's got a great place for entertaining large groups. Big rooms with lots of space. The game was exciting - and close! Half-time was interesting. Got to see some Janet Jackson "hootage" due to a mistake I guess on Justin Timberlake's part. Whoops. Went home afterwards and let Kyle browse through the DVD collection while I used the cables he brought. After a 2nd try, I got the software updated on my reverb processor. SWEET. Just a couple of bug fixes and some added functionality added. After all the fun and games, it's almost time for bed again.

In other news, I noticed something interesting the other night while I was out running around. Some of the joints in my hand hurt. I was rubbing them and realized they we're cold from me being outside. Hmmm... I held them up to the heat vents to my car and warmed them up and the soreness went away. CRAP I'M GETTING OLD.